The Internet is used on regular basis by many people around the world. Usage of the Internet has been driven to higher levels by the likes of major search engines such as Google™ and Yahoo!™. This usage has been driven to even higher levels by the advent of social networking sites, such as Facebook™ and Myspace™, as well as personal blogging sites such as Wordpress™ based sites, and microblogging services such as Twitter™ and Tumblr™. Global users of the Internet post information and content daily to social networking and blogging sites, and other users of the Internet can find the posted information using search engines. As the Internet grows, social media grows as well. No longer bounded by distance and geography, users of the Internet are free to immediately communicate with anyone, anywhere, and at any time. However, with the benefit of almost instantaneous communications come dangers.
Almost all content that is published online, be it a letter to a friend, a photo shared on a social networking site, or a video published and then linked in a blog post, is immortalized online. Due to the lack of any supervision or censorship, there is nothing to prevent publication of unfavorable, damaging, threatening, or defamatory content. Unfavorable information published online can be quite damaging to a person. Unfavorable personal information, rumors, and outright lies can have real and serious impacts on a victim, especially when the victim is a minor.
Even though bullying and verbal attacks are not new, digital tools available today to bully and attack are. In the United States, approximately 160,000 students miss school every day due to the fear of some form of harassment. About 60% of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) students who have been harassed or assaulted in school have not reported the incident. Approximately 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month. Negative content can be digitally broadcast through the use of social media, reaching a much greater audience faster, resulting in a more harmful impact. Research has found that harassment and conflict that begins online often results in a physical altercation in school, with teachers not being aware what precipitated the conflict. Defamatory content, words and images can stay online permanently, impacting victims their entire lives.
Digital attacks have reached epidemic numbers while the number of solutions has remained very small. Additionally, any laws and policies remain useless due to the lack of a mechanism by which they can be consistently enforced. Removing unfavorable content from the Internet has proved to be a daunting task.